


one may think we're all right

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:57:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another way <em>Feed</em> could have ended. Retreat is acceptable when you've been through the wringer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one may think we're all right

Your sister’s hair is as long now as it’s ever been.

With the exception, you think, of when you were young and the Masons kept you looking like a proper girl and boy, and who has time for that now, you think. Everyone grows up playing with trucks and guns these days.

“Toss me three,” George says, and fingers the bridge of her nose as she collapses back in her chair. Even the lights in the van are too bright for her, lately. 

You count out three of the medium-grade pain pills into your palm, direct her “Open,” and follow the deposit with a Coke fresh from the van freezer. 

George swallows with a wince. “Thanks,” she says.

You sit in the darkness and the silence and for once in your life don’t voice the thought pounding against your skull. “What now?” lingers between the two of you anyway, Tate’s syringes rolling slowly across the floor as his body struggled to become something it couldn’t with a shotgun blast in the brainpan. You slide your chair and link fingers with her, the way you did then, and feel it throbbing stronger: “What now?”

“I hate to suggest it,” George says, reading your mind like always, “but we’ve got to get out of here. And that means driving.” She rubs her face, and you can feel the exhaustion coming off her in waves. She squints at you in the half-light, her eyes dark and wonderful. 

“Rest,” you say, and kiss each of her eyelids because you can. “I’m on it.”

*

You keep within fifteen miles per hour of the speed limit, and you spend a good half an hour talking to Mahir once he rouses. He’s a good guy. He cares about George, and the site. You have that in common. 

“If you don’t hear from us within twenty-four hours, start screaming,” you conclude, and Mahir laughs, but it’s the kind of laugh with a tired knowledge behind it.

“You got it,” he says, and then all you hear is the empty line and the rush of tires on the road.

*

“Sunglasses,” you say, holding them out.

George grasps for them and slides them on. Her face relaxes, and you smile. “Gonna let me know where we are?” she asks, quirking her lips in a half-smile. 

“Three states away from Tate’s remains.” Your blood boils anew as his name echoes in your head. The bastard.

George exhales, maybe not even aware how much relief trickles between her lips. “The senator?”

You shrug, smile. “Couldn’t give less of a fuck, to be honest.” Your sister scowls and your smile widens into a grin. “The betas are on it. I put Mahir in charge.”

“We should be there,” George says, making no move to get up. She watches your face and you want to take her hand. You do.

“We should rest,” you say, and for once, George doesn’t argue.

*

It only takes two blood tests to get into the room (“One, two,”) which is both a relief and an improvement. You no longer have the pretense of a room full of equipment, but the two of you stand inside the doorway and wordlessly move to shove the two beds together. George’s head drops to your shoulder and she breathes in and out three times before straightening. “Mind if I shower first?”

“Just don’t stay in there long.” You mean it as a joke, a quick poke at your sister that she would respond to with the finger and a grin. Instead, she gives you a long look, and maybe for the first time in your lives, you can’t guess changes are taking place behind her glasses.

*

In the time it takes for your to tug the curtains closed and change two lightbulbs, George is back in the room, announced by the quiet click of the bathroom door. She’s wearing a towel, and her hair isn’t wet. You arch an eyebrow. Swallow.

There isn’t anything to be afraid of. Whatever might be out to get you has to get through two blood tests, two hundred miles, and a good damn guess to find you. There isn’t anything to poke at, to run from.

So maybe, you think, it’s just excess adrenaline when you rush to your sister and cup her face in your hand and she leans into it and, you think, if she could cry she would. George’s forehead meets yours and you breathe the same air until both your heartbeats are steady and even and whatever god is out there help you, you still want to kiss her.

So you do.

And for once, George doesn’t argue. She makes a noise, a small kind of cooing, and presses herself to you. You kiss, and touch the back of her neck, stroking at the soft skin of her hairline. 

Then your foreheads are touching again, so much closer, and George smiles. “Brush your teeth, will you,” she says, and her fingers wind through yours as she tugs you towards the bathroom.

“Such a taskmaster,” you say.

George shakes her head and starts the water. Letting the towel slide to the floor she watches you and says, clearer than you’ve ever heard, “I love you, too.”


End file.
